


Of Quests and Domesticity

by RoseGiaco



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Oakvale, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28911771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseGiaco/pseuds/RoseGiaco
Summary: Autumn meets him on a quest.He’s got hair spun from sunlight and a voice like butter. But before she knows him…
Relationships: Autumn/Barry Oak
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Of Quests and Domesticity

Autumn meets him on a quest. 

He’s got hair spun from sunlight and a voice like butter. But before she knows him… 

Oakvale is fairly well known, though not as such, but before it had a name and a benefactor it was a favorite rest stop of world weary travelers. A place between places. Kindly people who kept to themselves and were nice enough to provide lodging for those who were down on their luck, as questers and soon to be heroes tended to be. 

Autumn was one such quester.

Well… 

Not quite.

Autumn, while strong, didn't have the temperament for outstanding bravery. She took to the clerical arts quite well, devotion a side of her she hadn't truly explored. She'd found a new passion in helping people, healing them at least.

She stays in her small pond until finally she gets her call to adventure.

Autumn was born in a town she doesn’t remember, to people who she’d have rather forgotten. Life was not kind, but it was not cruel, except for that first part. But as with most things, that first part shaped the rest. Autumn became bitter with most things, except for one, the quest. When her parents would lash out Autumn would dream of her quest. Slaying a dragon or rescuing a kingdom. So when her parent's voices grew loud and their movements harsh, Autumn learned how to make herself small and unobtrusive and think of her quest. Her name being known throughout the whole realm as a bringer of justice and peace. She clinged to these dreams, her liferaft, and when the time was right she drifted away from the worst people she had ever known towards destiny. 

Towards her quest.

Well… 

Not quite.

She meets him in between. Her little town was quite a ways away from Neverwinter, but she was stalwart in her convictions, in her dreams, and foremost in her quest. She leaves home an eager young woman, if a bit naive. Untested and untempered against the world but full to bursting with grit. 

When she comes upon Oakvale-to-be it is a blessing. She is tired, more so than she has ever been, her legs begging to drop but through sheer will power refusing to. The woods are thick, weeds clinging to her, begging her to trip. Her heavy legs have no problem obliging. 

It's the wrong move.

The vine that bit into her ankle does not come with her as she tumbles down the hill. She's rolling. Knees in, arms out trying to avoid tree trunks and rocks. Her momentum slows and suddenly she's flat on her back. Bruised and battered she opens her eyes to the sky and breathes. She hears the crunch of grass under feet rushing towards her as she passes out. 

_____________________

Autumn wakes under various bandages and salves, more refreshed than she'd felt in weeks. She doesn't trust it as such, green as she is she'd always had a good sense for danger. She starts to get up looking for her pack.

A man with a kind face and brownish hair walks toward her. 

"Oh, your awake! The way you looked I hadn't expected you to be up and about quite yet." The man smiles and they talk. 

He has the air of a man at peace and some small part of Autumn burns at his tranquility. 

They finish their chat, she should apply this salve to this cut for however many days or else it'll scar, so on and so forth. She gathers up her things and leaves. The townsfolk had been nice enough to find what had fallen out of her pack. 

She makes it about halfway through the town when something catches her eye. 

Someone catches her eye.

There's a group circled around him, each thoroughly enraptured. 

He too is seemingly caught in the motions of his own words, gesturing here and there. The group follow his hands, entranced, leaning in to hear more of what he has to say.

Autumn blinks as she realizes that she has been standing completely still, staring at the storyteller. 

He's handsome, with the sharp features of a half elf, and for a second she wants nothing but to be one of the crowd hanging off his every word.

But before she can take another step his eyes meet hers. She flushes and turns away, embarrassed at being caught watching. She rushes off to Neverwinter.

________________

It's a while before Autumn is back in Oakvale-to-be, having gone to aid this and that group in Neverwinter. She tries to change her being, rewriting herself to, instead of hide from conflict, run into it.

And in this she is successful. 

She’s good at what she does and she learns to cope with doing so under fire. Soon enough she gets a letter from a group she had worked with before, requesting her assistance in Rockport. 

It grows darker than she thought it would get on her way to Rockport, and then it starts to rain and that’s when it all goes off the rails. 

Autumn is sat against a tree, for all the coverage it’s giving her, when she hears a crack and a crash. She’s on her feet before her brain has caught up, already launched in a mad dash towards the commotion.

In the rain and mud she sees only deep gouges in the earth, skid marks, she realizes. She dashes to the edge of the road and sees a hire-coach dashed upon the rocks, it's horses having escaped. 

Autumn slides down the hill. Time is of the essence and any she wastes could be the difference between life and death, it is a lesson she has learned the hard way.

The door is already open when she gets a closer look at the buggy and inside she finds a man. 

He's bleeding from his temple and arm, but besides some other minor cuts and bruises he seems unharmed. She heals what injuries she does see and starts to pull him out of the wagon. He's limp in her arms, his head lolling to the side. But briefly his eyes open, and she recognizes him as the man who had been speaking last time she'd been in Oakvale to be. 

And then she's back there, his eyes on hers and she feels like a specimen on one of her teacher's walls.

And then his eyes closed and she slowly sunk back into herself. Her clothes were soaked and heavy, an unconscious man in her arms, and like that she started to walk. 

_____________

She doesn't remember arriving in Oakvale to be. She likes to imagine it was something dramatic though, like something out of a story told by the fire or scrawled in the library's endless books of foolhardy heroes. She wakes up much like she had the last time, but unlike the last time, she does not wake up alone. 

The man she had saved is there too, just looking at her. His eyes filled with wonderment and curiosity and something else that she does not dare name. 

He smiles at her, it is wide and beautiful. 

He smiles at her, the thing behind his eyes is both desire and possession. 

(She doesn't yet know how dissimilar both of these are from love, but she will learn.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is my first fic for the dungeons and daddies fandom but I really enjoyed the idea of autumn. Please comment and kudos. This is pretty much a one shot but I might expand a bit more if anyone wants that. I hope you enjoyed the read.


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